Thursday, August 06, 2009

LubyankaDB Installed on White House Computers

The LubyankaDB!

Senate Judiciary Committee lawyers studying the proposal say that although there is no absolutely settled law on the matter, the White House plan is likely not covered by the Privacy Act, which prohibits government agencies from keeping any records "describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized by statute or by the individual about whom the record is maintained." Therefore, it appears the White House can legally keep records of the emails and other communications it receives in response to Phillips' request.

Those lawyers also point out that the White House is not covered by the Freedom of Information Act, which means it would not have to release any information on the plan to members of the public who make a request.

In addition, the lawyers say the collected emails likely will be covered by the Presidential Records Act, which requires the White House to preserve and maintain its records for permanent storage in a government database.

That would be "LubyankaDB," I guess. Originally developed at Dzerzhinsky Square, Moscow, USSR. Currently runs over Linux, MS, AS-400 or 3090-class MVS operating systems. Enhanced for compatibility with Excel and Lotus spreadsheets. Proven operable in extreme cold.

There is some controversy as to whether or not the Privacy Act applies, by the way.

HT: PowerLine

3 comments:

Andy K. said...

Encryption isn't too hard, I don't think, and proxying/masking IP/etc could probably be done relatively easily?

Scary, yes. This White House doesn't stir within me confidence, or safety, or anything positive.

Display Name said...

First version ran on the Kremvax back in '86.

Dad29 said...

Yup. And there is no HP-compatible LubyankaDB version.